Monastery Meets Modernity

A picture of one of the entryways to a courtyard of Harbin's Jile Temple with the ferris wheel of the neighboring Harbin Cultural Park - formerly Novoye Cemetery, one of the burial grounds for the city's Orthodox Christians - in the background. It was a bit surreal to be in such a quiet, peaceful place and yet still at various points be able to see the apartment buildings and ferris wheel towering above its walls!

Expecting the Unexpected

I so wish I'd had the nerve to take a picture of the overweight 60-year old man wearing a form-fitting mesh shirt I passed earlier - it was both a shock and a delight to see! Of all the random things I've encountered so far, that was far and away the most random. And it reminded me that if China's taught me anything so far, it's to expect the unexpected!

I moved here thinking I would be able to find familiar herbs in the spice/herb aisle of the local grocery store. My local Carrefour goes so far as to stock the McCormick brand in its spice aisle, but only in endless varieties of powdered black pepper and cumin. I've been here three weeks now and still haven't found anything recognizable to me as basil or parsley. Cilantro - something I neither expected to use nor planned to miss - is at my local grocery store. As is a range of fresh seaweed options! Expect the unexpected.

I knew the air pollution could be bad in China, and (if the averages are anything to go by) will be bad here in Harbin come wintertime. I fully expected to buy and wear a face mask once I got over here, and I see people out and about on the occasional bad smog day wearing face masks. But after hours of wondering around supermarkets, underground and over-ground malls, and various shopping districts I have yet to see a single face mask for sale. Whenever I'm out and about now I keep one eye scanning kiosks and stores for face masks, 'cause they have to be coming from

Seaweed options at my local Carrefour.

somewhere! I fully expect to find them in a gigantic pile at the sausage kiosk one of these days. Expect the unexpected.

I quickly adjusted to crossing the street here - it's a lot like where I grew up in Africa, where we crossed lane by lane - only to discover that lighter vehicles like scooters often go against the flow of traffic and that cars will occasionally use a U-turn-only option to angle across a major intersection to get onto another road, which means that you basically have to look every direction except up when crossing the road. (And I still half expect to be crushed by a helicopter someday!) Expect the unexpected.

Expecting the unexpected is getting to be quite draining, as my head spins in circles scanning the streets I cross and I keep my eyes peeled for a growing list of things I have yet to spot in a store here. Just keeping from running into someone on the crowded streets is a job in and of itself! But to see something so unexpectedly funny really makes my day, so picture or no, I'm so glad that I passed that retiree in his mesh shirt! Expect the unexpected!

Update (31/7/2014): I found basil and parsley! After the dust settled from my neighborhood Carrefour's reorganization both popped up in the imported foods aisle!

Update (5/12/2018): I'm very happy to say that awareness of the need for protection from the air pollution has risen and it's much easier to find face masks than it was when I first arrived here!

Air with Chinese Characteristics

The smoggy view from my apartment building yesterday evening.

Air pollution was one of the big talking points in the lead-up to my move to China, but as I monitored the situation here in Harbin it seemed pretty great, with pollution readings generally in the 30s. (For more on that check out Wikipedia's article on the topic.) But the last two days our readings have been in the 200s. (At one point Thursday evening we got up to 301, and I'm told during the day it got into the 500s.) I've spent my brief time outdoors checking some of the bigger stores for face masks and the components for DIY air purifiers, but with no luck so far. I'm hoping for more luck tomorrow! In the meantime though the picture above pretty accurately portrays what things look like around here right now. (In Harbin's defense, I'm told this is very unusual for the summer, and the last two weeks have been pretty good.)

Celebrity Status

Before moving here I was warned that foreigners attracted a lot of attention and not to let it get to me, which honestly made me question whether I could really handle living in China. I'm all too familiar with the celebrity status foreigners can have. Where I lived in high school groups of little kids would latch on to foreigners passing by in the streets and follow them shouting "you," "foreigner," "money," or whatever other random English phrase they knew until they got

Zhongyang Dajie in Harbin.

a little attention (if you were lucky) or money (if you weren't). In their wake would come beggars and students looking to practice their English. On the fringes were the people who'd rarely (if ever) seen a foreigner who couldn't help staring at the strangeness passing by.

Maybe that doesn't sound so bad on the surface, but when your every public movement is tracked, often with the feeling of a town crier going before and behind you, then going even a block down the street to pickup some groceries or grab a coffee can be a frustrating experience. For this introvert it was a draining one. I budgeted my time out and about, and would return home completely wiped. The experience also left me with a rather deep-seated insecurity about friendship after being approached by so many people looking to be 'friends' - that is, looking for someone to give them money, marry them, provide free English lessons, find them a foreign wife, make them cooler in the eyes of their friends, pay for their children's school fees, et cetera.

Returning to North America after this experience I found myself going through withdrawal. The attention had become so normal that losing it - blessed relief that that was! - left me wondering what was wrong with me that no one did a double take when I walked down the street. It made me realize that I had gotten used to my celebrity status, and it left me with a deep sympathy for what truly famous people must go through. (Can you imagine going through life never just being able to go to the grocery store, the park, et cetera, without being hassled? What a nightmare!)

Withdrawals or no, the thought of living with that kind of attention again was almost a deal breaker for me when I was considering the move to northeastern China. And while I do notice the double takes as I walk down the street here, my celebrity status is nothing like back home. I had actually almost forgotten about my concern till today, when a random kid walked up to me at one of the beer gardens on Zhongyang Dajie (downtown Harbin's pedestrian street) and asked if he could take his picture with me - I may not be in the big leagues anymore, but apparently I'm still a celebrity! I think, however, that this is the kind of low key celebrity status that I can handle.

Soviet War Memorial

The Soviet War Memorial on Harbin's Hongbo Square to commemorate the members of the Soviet Armed Forces who died in 1945 during the liberation of Manchuria from the Japanese during World War II. From the Russian-language inscription: 'Eternal Glory to the Heroes [Who] Died Fighting for the Freedom and Independence of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.'

Fun Wasabi Shrimp Chips

These are fantastic. I've got a real life recipe for grilled wasabi shrimp that's even better, but these are seriously the next best thing! (Also, the name is just too funny!)

Birthday Cake Oreos

Lest the bathroom post make you think it's all suffering and hardship here in China, they also still have birthday cake oreos! (I never thought they could improve on oreos with all of those novelty flavors, and then they did!)

Bathrooms Abroad

One of the assumptions I got disabused of from an early age was that the whole world uses Western-style toilets, the clean, comfy kind that you just sit down on and go while reading a book that some poor friend will borrow later and never realize that it spent most of its time with you sitting on top of the place you relieve yourself. (Not that I think that's gross or anything of

A "natural position" toilet.

course!) The funny thing about this assumption is that it doesn't even match the reality in the West, where all too often I've found it easier to wait till I'm home than to use some of the rarely (never?) cleaned restrooms one can find at rest stops and restaurants.

Even so, many people move abroad without even thinking that the changes to their life could be as basic as how they use the restroom. Pictured is what I'm told is the norm here in China, was the norm where I grew up in Africa, and is often the norm in Eastern Europe as well. (I've found in Eastern Europe that even in places with Western-style toilets people often use them they way they would the 'toilet' in the picture.) And the 'Turkish toilet' pictured is one of the nicest versions I've encountered in my many years living outside the West!

All that being said, I'm fortunate enough to have a Western-style toilet in my apartment here. (It was a relief to see, I can assure you!) But when you're preparing for a move always remember to work on those leg muscles just in case how you make a move becomes drastically different!

Trash Pickup

Oh, you know, they're just picking up the trash...with a front loader...

St. Sophia Cathedral

Harbin's Municipal Architecture and Art Museum, formerly Holy Wisdom Orthodox Cathedral.

RMB Coinage

This is a brief follow-up post to my last one on assumptions. There are plenty of other websites that break down the Chinese currency much better than I can, but I thought I'd post a brief overview of the coinage since it's what puzzled me when I first got here. (Thanks entirely to my own erroneous assumptions of course!)

The Chinese rénmínbì (RMB), yuán (¥), or kuài is divided - among other things - into three coins, the 1 yuán (at the top of the picture), the 5 jiǎo (in the middle) and the 1 jiǎo (at the bottom). The ¥1 coin is pretty straightforward, but the 1 and 5 jiǎo coins didn't make sense to me until I googled them and realized that the 5 jiǎo is the equivalent of ¥0.50 or 50 cents and the 1 jiǎo is the equivalent of ¥0.10 or an American dime. (All this time I thought the cashiers were shorting me by giving me nickels and dimes for change - oops!) Assumptions - they'll get you every time!

Assumptions

I've been thinking this morning about the assumptions we all make. Assuming a store will carry something we're looking for when it doesn't normally, that the babysitter will know where the formula is 'cause the kitchen is organized sensibly, that our significant other can read our minds and knows why we do what we do.

I grew up changing countries a fair amounts, so moving to China I thought that I suffered from no illusions. I knew there had to be some assumptions I was making ahead of time that would turn out not to be true, and somehow I went from that knowledge to the assumption that I wasn't assuming anything ahead of time. China was a new country and a new experience, and I would just take it like it was!

And yet I got here assuming that my employer covered my [cell] phone, and discovered that they meant a landline. Over the last week I've had the growing suspicion that virtually all of the cashiers here were cheating me on my change because of the denomination of coins I was getting, and then I did some googling and realized that coins here do not work the way they did in North America, Eastern Europe, or East Africa. And there are so very many more, and more to be discovered as the days go by!

It's amazing just how many assumptions we make, even when we think we're not! Day after day I try to see what other assumptions I have lurking inside, waiting to be uncovered, but even so the discovery of new ones comes as a surprise. Another of life's lessons that has to be learned over and over again!

The Little Things

It's amazing how the little things are often the ones that can really make or break your day in a new country. Yesterday during training I looked over at an older foreign colleague during lunch, using her chopsticks so adeptly, and it struck me like a bolt of lightning: I live in CHINA! Incredible! Latter that day my school's Chinese go-to guy for life issues here helped me buy a phone and a SIM card, only for us to realize that my data plan - which I only bought so that I

My tricksy washing machine.

could pull up directions if I got lost in the city - wasn't working on the used phone I'd bought. Or on any of the other phones the vendor had, no matter how new or old. Within a few hours I went from having my biggest high living in China to my biggest low.

But then I got back to my beautiful apartment complex, exhausted from an afternoon spent walking in incredibly painful shoes and trying not to get tossed around like a rag doll on the bus - I've had manic bus drivers, but they take things to a whole new level here! - and realized that the little convenience store on the corner of my building has both jiaozi and Harbin beer, and between that and semi-miraculously finding my way home on the bus suddenly everything was okay. And now, at five in the morning, I've finally figured out how my washing machine works! (Apparently turning the water on does the trick - oops!) No more using t-shirts as towels! Such a profound sense of victory, once again. It really is the little things!

First Impressions

Well, Harbin may be China's Ice City, but it's certainly not icy right now! When I got in Monday evening it was nice and cool, but the days have been decently warm and surprisingly muggy - very much reminiscent of summers in southern Michigan! I'd thought I would just leave my windows open to cool my apartment off, but so far I've been using the air conditioning unit quite a bit. I'll enjoy the warmth while it lasts though!

The week so far has been a jumble of events and impressions, but I will say that I am thankful I'm in Harbin with its blue skies and strong winds and not Beijing, which from the airport was just as warm, but with so much smog you couldn't see past the other terminal buildings, much less the sky! Another interesting contrast getting on the plane to Harbin in Beijing was how many people my height (or close to it) were on the flight compared to the flight from the States to Beijing,

The view from my apartment!

where the majority were Westerners. It doesn't change the fact that I've got to bend over to wash the dishes in my new apartment, but it was an encouragement to realize that I wouldn't be towering over others any more than I usually do!

I haven't done much these last couple of days beyond unpack and check out the local convenience store (and the Carrefour down the street), but I'm definitely looking forward to getting to know Harbin better! One thing I do know so far is that I'm going to like living in such an affordable place - I went on a bit of a shopping spree yesterday to get some necessities and staples for the apartment, and I was relieved after I calculated the totals in US dollars to realize how little I'd spent for so much! The bus alone only cost ¥1 ($0.16), which is pretty hard to beat!

I've got plenty more unpacking to do, so I'd better get to it! Cheers!